The Petra Visitor Center sits behind a facade of rough-hewn stone blocks, designed to mimic the massive sandstone cliffs that define the ancient city beyond. Built to manage the flow of thousands of people, it serves as the official…
Siq to the Treasury
We walk the classic first-timer route through Petra, starting at the gates and winding through the dramatic sandstone Siq to the breathtaking reveal of the Treasury and beyond.
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1. Petra Visitor Center
2. Djinn Blocks
The Djinn Blocks are three massive, solitary stone towers standing near the main entrance to Petra. Unlike the city’s famous carved facades, these blocks show no elaborate decorations, only smooth, imposing faces. They served as funerary…
3. Obelisk Tomb & Bab as-Siq Triclinium.
The Obelisk Tomb and the Bab as-Siq Triclinium stand as a stacked pair of monuments carved directly into the sandstone cliffs. The top structure features four pyramid-shaped obelisks representing the deceased, while the lower dining hall…
4. Al-Siq
The Siq is a narrow, winding gorge carved by tectonic forces, its walls soaring up to two hundred feet high. This kilometer-long chasm serves as the dramatic entrance to the ancient city of Petra. Centuries ago, Nabataean engineers cut…
5. The Treasury
The Treasury facade is carved directly into the sheer, rose-colored sandstone cliff, standing nearly forty meters tall with elaborate Corinthian columns and weathered figures of mythological twins. King Aretas the Fourth commissioned this…
6. Street of Facades
The Street of Facades features a row of monumental Nabatean tombs carved directly into the sandstone cliffside. These openings rise in tiers, their classical columns and geometric friezes weathered into soft, honey-colored ripples by…
7. Nabatean Theatre
The Nabatean Theatre cuts directly into the rose-red sandstone of the mountain, rather than standing as a built structure. Carved in the first century during the reign of Aretas the fourth, the auditorium held up to eight thousand…